Chamber and committees

The Scottish Parliament has had a range of requests to support the placing of commemorative works in the parliamentary complex. In order to move forward, the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body will consider the issue of commemorative works at a forthcoming meeting. It is anticipated that we will develop a policy on this subject which will clarify our approach taking into account resource and space implications.

The current national maximum waiting time for in-patient and day case treatment, including hernia operations, is nine months. This guaranteed maximum waiting time will be reduced to six months from the end of this year, and to 18 weeks from the end of 2007.

On 30 June 2005, no patient with a guarantee had waited more than nine months for in-patient and day case treatment.

I have asked Tony Cameron,Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond. His response is asfollows:

The information is availablefrom 2002-03 onwards and is as follows:

Year	Number of Self-Harm Incidents
2002-03	115
2003-04	100
2004-05	45

 

The extra £2 million will begin to forge the closer links between our drugs strategy and our plans for reducing reoffending, signalled in the Criminal Justice Plan, published in December 2004, by creating up to an extra 1000 treatment places. The extra money will extend the range of community interventions targeted at those individuals whose drug misuse brings them into contact with the criminal justice system so that we can offer them access to treatment facilities at each stage in the process. I will announce the details in due course. This is an opportunity to make better use of the combined expertise of the health and justice services in such matters and the arrangements for monitoring effectiveness will build on the best of what already exists.

The number of recipients of counciltax benefit in each local authority in Scotland are published quarterly by the Department for Work andPensions. These are available from February 2002 onwards from the DWP statisticswebsite at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbctb.asp.

Figures from before February2002 are not held available at local authority level.

The information requested in given in the following table.

Alcohol-Related Deaths in Scotland 1999-2004¹

	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Argyll and Clyde	109	134	144	155	156	126
Ayrshire and Arran	63	77	76	86	94	85
Borders	9	8	13	14	11	17
Dumfries and Galloway	10	17	21	22	25	22
Fife	46	65	50	68	52	56
Forth Valley	39	50	51	53	54	52
Grampian	68	80	88	73	75	77
Greater Glasgow	290	305	347	371	370	356
Highland	39	57	43	57	48	57
Lanarkshire	122	110	118	149	153	153
Lothian	135	156	170	171	172	171
Orkney	2	5	8	4	6	7
Shetland	1	1	5	1	2	6
Tayside	73	61	82	88	111	119
Western Isles	7	3	3	9	13	10
All Scotland	1013	1129	1219	1321	1342	1314

Note: 1. 1999: International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, codes 291, 303, 305.0, 425.5 and 571.0 571.3. 2000 2004: International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision, codes F10.0 F10.9, I42.6 and K70.0 K70.9.

The information requested by the member is not held centrally.

I have asked Tony Cameron, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to respond. His response is as follows:

In his interim report of March 2005, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons made many positive comments. The Governor of Cornton Vale continues to implement a number of local initiatives which improve access to visits and access to toilets at night. This is greatly assisted by the opening of Wallace Block and the introduction of CCTV coverage in Younger House.

A date has not yet been set for the Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) referred to. Once a determination is made at the FAI, SPS will respond appropriately.

The available information relates to calendar years 2002 and 2003 and is given in the following table. Information relating to later years is not yet available.

Selected Offences with a Charge Proved in Scottish Courts, by Police Force Area, 2002-03.

Police Force Area	Serious Assault		Common Assault		Breach of the peace
	2002	2003	2002	2003	2002	2003
Central	84	83	997	979	1,367	1,328
Dumfries and Galloway	41	34	411	531	530	665
Fife	100	60	858	865	1,019	959
Grampian	72	92	1,589	1,713	1,728	1,839
Lothian and Borders	234	231	2,504	2,371	3,006	2,594
Northern	42	64	894	1,032	1,293	1,414
Strathclyde	611	582	6,599	6,768	10,993	11,321
Tayside	114	105	1,566	1,570	2,139	2,357
Scotland	1,298	1,251	15,418	15,829	22,075	22,477

 

Core costs are incurred by health, the police and other agencies in tackling alcohol problems. This is also targeted through generic social and in particular joint drugs/alcohol initiatives such as the Lloyds TSB PDI initiative which supports activities to support children at risk from drugs and alcohol (£2 million) and training programmes offered by STRADA for drug and alcohol professionals (£0.8 million).

Specific Health Department funding of £5.5 million in 2004-05 covers core grant funding for Alcohol Focus Scotland, support for local Alcohol Action Teams, the Gender Issues Network on Alcohol (GINA), support for the Serve Wise programme and from 2002, support for the National Alcohol Information Resource at ISD. It also includes £744,000 (14%) for national advertising campaigns to tackle binge drinking.